b) Request for a search-fee refund

In G 1/11 (OJ 2014, A122) the Enlarged Board held that a technical board of appeal was competent to hear an appeal against an EPO examining division's decision – taken separately from its decision granting a patent or refusing the application – not to refund search fees under R. 64(2) EPC.

Where a request under R. 64(2) EPC for a refund of a further search fee paid under R. 64(1) EPC is first filed on appeal against an examining division decision, the board has no competence to decide on it and it must therefore be refused as inadmissible (T 2076/15).